Big Mountain Films - Shaman of the Andes

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Shaman of the Andes now available at Amazon.com

Taita Churo is a Quechua Indian shaman from the Imbaburu province of Ecuador in the Andes Mountains. He is a shaman, a traditional healer and holy man, who treats his patients with a mixture of medicinal plants and incantations to the mountain gods of the indigenous people, as well as invoking the Catholic faith brought to them in post-Columbian times. Taita Churo became a shaman forty years ago, after an illness and what he describes as a journey to hell were the impetus for his apprenticeship. After his mystical near-death experience, he studied medicinal herbs and the invisible landscape of the mountain spirits. He is both doctor and mystic, curing clients of bad luck, evil spirits and physical illnesses.

Taita Churo's world is changing. How his role will survive in a modern world is not immediately obvious. Many of the Quechua still go to Taita Churo, although some are afraid of him, and some are largely ambivalent. The modern world is bringing change to the Andes and the Quechua must change with it. Taita Churo continues in his traditional role but the community's needs are changing with an increasingly modern world.

The Quechua are living in the margin between the past and the future. The need to modernize is an ever-present force in the life of the Quechua. As the Quechua adapt to the modern world, they are intent on holding onto their heritage and the cosmology that has ordered their mountain world for thousands of years.

Taita Churo's son Enrique, like his father, is a shaman. Thirty-three years old, Enrique came of age in a far different world than his father. His shamanism reflects our changing world, incorporating both modern medical practices such as antibiotics and injections, while also using the traditional medicinal herbs and incantations calling on the mountain deities that he learned from his father. In a modern world the Quechua don't want to lose their traditional beliefs and customs. Enrique is providing a link between the modern world and the traditional Quechua culture.